Queen Elizabeth I
Queen Elizabeth I is a BrainPOP movie that aired on April 9, 2007. Summary Appearances *Tim *Moby Transcript * Queen Elizabeth I/Transcript Quiz * Queen Elizabeth I/Transcript FYI Sickness And Health Why does Queen Elizabeth I look so pale in all her portraits? Well, standards of beauty have changed a lot since Elizabethan times! Back then, fashionable women wanted to have perfectly white skin. To get their faces white as a ghost, they often used a face paint made of vinegar and white lead—a dangerous chemical that not only caused skin problems but slowly poisoned the women who used it! Many women painted their lips red with another poisonous substance—'mercuric sulfide'—and even washed their face with mercury to expose a smooth layer of skin. Besides causing skin irritation, mercury poisoning can affect the central nervous system, causing loss of coordination, damage to your sense of vision and hearing, speech impairment, and more. In fact, the term “mad as a hatter” probably derives from the widespread incidence of mercury poisoning among hat makers, who until the 1940s used mercury as a softening agent in the manufacture of felt hats. To get the high forehead that was a sign of aristocracy, women would pluck out their eyebrows and an inch of their hair. To make their eyes sparkle, they’d use drops of belladonna, a poisonous shrub. Back then, just as now, some people thought it was better to look good than to feel good! Eating And Drinking People in the Elizabethan Era ate food that we might not find so tasty! Here’s a recipe for a roast pig stuffed with pudding (weird Elizabethan spelling and all): “Take a fat Pig and truss his head backward loking over his back, then make such Pudding as you like best, and fill his belly with it, your Pudding must be stiff, then sew it up, and rost your Pig, when it is almost enough, wring upon it the Juice of a Limon, and when you are ready to take it up, wash it over with yolks of Eggs, and before they can dry, dredge it with grated bread mixed with a little Nutmeg and Ginger, let your Sauce be Vinegar, Butter and Sugar, and the yolks of hard Eggs minced.” What was the pudding? It may have been something like this: “Take Grated Bread, a little Flour, Sugar, Salt, beaten Spice, and store of Eggs well beaten, mix these well, and beat them together, then dip a clean Cloth in hot water, and Flour it over, and let one hold it at the four corners till you put it in, so tie it up hard, and let your Water boil when you put it in, then boil it for one hour, and serve it in with Sack, Sugar and Butter.” We’ll just have the salad, thank you very much. Quotables Here is the Good Queen Bess, in her own words! * “I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a King, and of a King of England too!” * “I have already joined myself in marriage to a husband, namely the kingdom of England.” * “To be a King and wear a crown is a thing more pleasant to them that see it, than it is pleasant to them that bear it.” * “We princes are set as it were upon stages in the sight and view of the world.” * “Better beggar woman and single than Queen and married.” * “I will never be by violence constrained to do anything.” Quirky Stuff Need some help remembering all the British monarchs? We do, too! That’s why there’s a rhyme to help you out. It begins with William the Conqueror '''(pictured), who took over England in 1066, and ends with the reigning monarch, '''Elizabeth II. Enjoy! Willie Willie Harry Stee Harry Dick John Harry three; One two three Neds, Richard two Harrys four five six . . . then who? Edwards four five, Dick the bad, Harrys (twain), Ned six (the lad); Mary, Bessie, James you ken, Then Charlie, Charlie, James again . . . Will and Mary, Anna Gloria, Georges four, Will four Victoria; Edward seven next, and then Came George the fifth in nineteen ten; Ned the eighth soon abdicated Then George six was coronated; After which Elizabeth And that's all, folks, until her death. Language The English language went through many changes in the Elizabethan period. According to some scholars, the average person now has about 7,500 words in his or her vocabulary, compared to only about 500 in Queen Elizabeth’s time! That’s because up until the 16th century, French had been the unofficial language of polite society, and English was often seen as lower-class and uncouth. One of the main forces behind the flowering of the English language was playwright 'William Shakespeare '(pictured), who added about 2,000 words to the dictionary! It’s probably unfair to say that he invented all those words, but he was the first person who left a record of having used them in a modern way. Often, he coined new words by changing verbs into nouns and vice versa, or combining two words in an original fashion. Here are some of Shakespeare’s additions to the dictionary. * Accommodation. * Bedazzle. * Critical. * Employer. * Face (of a clock). * Gust (of wind). * Hostile. * Impartial. * Laughable. * Manager. * Pious. * Squabble. * Torture (verb). * Unchanging. * Well-read. Gallery Queen Elizabeth I.jpg Category:BrainPOP Episodes Category:Social Studies Category:Famous Historical Figures Category:Women's History Category:World History Category:2007 Episodes Category:Episodes in April Category:April 2007 Episodes